It’s not easy to make a good product even better, and when rumors of a successor to the highly acclaimed G9 surfaced, I was skeptical. However, the G10 proved me wrong. It has many improved features and fully deserves to take over the G9’s flagship position in Canon’s non DSLR line-up.
First of all, the G10 now offers 14.7 million pixels compared to the G9’s 12MP. It also has a wider lens at 28mm, which can be handy for capturing group photos. The 3-inch LCD now has double the number of pixels (at 461,000) making it much easier to gauge the quality of a shot. The imaging engine has also been updated to Canon’s latest DIGIC 4 and even the battery has gotten a boost from 720mAH to 1050mAH, which should keep it going for quite a few more shots.
Not everything however, is an improvement. Although the pixel count has increased, Canon has stuck to the same 1/1.7” CCD sensor, which means increased pixel density that will result in lower light sensitivity (but not necessarily lower quality images). The optical zoom range has also decreased from 6x to 5x, but as mentioned earlier, the G10 has a wider 28mm focal length compared to the G9’s 35mm.
In terms of picture quality, the G10 shines; noise levels are kept acceptable low, even at high ISO settings (800 and 1600). There’s no noticeable barrel distortion at full zoom and the image stabilizer also works well for those with shaky hands. The new exposure compensation dial is really handy and all the controls are easily accessible. Even first time users should have no problems navigating the functions and menus.
If you’re looking for a backup for your DSLR, do yourself a favor and get the Powershot G10. You won’t regret it.
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